What Hides Behind Mums’ Overwhelm

“Overwhelm.”

It’s a word mums use frequently... That sense of overload and strain that comes with the balancing act of juggling work, home, and the kids, while never quite getting to the end of your to-do list. The exhaustion, the mental fog, and yet the need to keep pushing through the day without really knowing how you’re gonna make it.

Behind the phrase “I’m overwhelmed” lies a wide range of experiences that don’t all look the same or have the same causes.

In this blog, we explore what overwhelm really means in motherhood, how it shows up, and why understanding it more deeply can be incredibly relieving.

What do mums really mean when they say “I’m overwhelmed”?

If we look at the Cambridge Dictionary, overwhelm is defined as “feeling sudden strong emotion” or “having too much to manage” (Cambridge Dictionary).

In other words, overwhelm describes an emotional load that feels too heavy, or a logistical load that feels too big. Often, the two are deeply intertwined.

Put simply, overwhelm is the point at which the demands placed on you exceed your capacity in that moment, a very common experience in motherhood!

Tracy Sidesinger captures this powerfully when she writes that “Matrescence is overwhelm bidden beyond one’s limit” (Sidesinger, 2024).

Sidesinger’s quote speaks directly to the postpartum period, with its identity shift, sleep deprivation, and anxiety linked to the vulnerability of a newborn. But overwhelm does not end there. Many mothers continue to experience overwhelm well beyond the infant stage, with each phase bringing its own challenges and its own specific type of overwhelm.

Although many mothers report feeling overwhelmed, this experience can look very different from one woman to another. Not surprisingly, overwhelm also has different underlying causes, and therefore calls for different solutions. This is why it is so important to look beyond the surface and understand what is really driving this feeling of overload.

Understanding the different aspects of overwhelm

Based on what I’ve observed of mothers’ experiences (and in my personal life), overwhelm can show up in different forms: sensory overload, mental overload, and emotional overload.

Full disclaimer: this is by no means an official classification. This is my own framework to make sense of it all.

• Sensory overload

This is when you feel overstimulated and your nervous system just can’t take it anymore. Think of those moments when you’re trying to cook dinner with the TV on in the background, the kids screaming at the screen, and the kitchen hood making that loud humming noise… add the lights being too bright, the room too hot, and suddenly everything is irritating!

If you recognise that you’re prone to sensory overload, it can help to adapt your environment to reduce stimulation (e.g. dimmer lights, noise-cancelling headphones), and to plan small mindful breaks throughout your day. For instance, you could just step outside for a few minutes, breathe, and feel the wind on your skin.

• Mental overload

This one is so common for mums. Mental overload happens when you have too much information, too much to juggle, too much to think about… and it can lead to a mental block. You don’t know where to start, what to do next, or how to tackle a problem.

It might be that your to-do list is way too long, but you have no idea how to reduce it, because when things get pushed to later, they just pile up… and everything feels important, nothing can be cut off!

This can also be linked to constant multitasking and role-switching: being an employee, a mum, a partner, a “household manager”… while constantly being interrupted to deal with the next emergency. You can’t focus on anything, you start tasks but can’t finish them, and you end up feeling overwhelmed by everything being half-done.

There can also be information overload, often linked to the pressure to do things “right,” which inevitably leads to decision fatigue. You search for the right parenting advice, the right career move, the right practitioner for your child…and the more options you gather, the more confused you are!

As you can see, mental overload can take many forms and therefore needs to be addressed differently depending on your situation. But as a general rule, I invite you to explore where you could cut yourself some slack and let go of perfectionism. Also see if you can free yourself from external expectations, and reconnect with your own values so you can focus on what truly matters to you.

• Emotional overload

In my opinion, this one is more subtle and less talked about when we think about overwhelm. Emotional overload happens when you’ve reached your emotional regulation capacity.

You may have spent the whole day preventing or calming tantrums, mediating sibling fights, walking on eggshells with your boss, or absorbing your partner’s stress; and this left no space for your own feelings. Or it might simply be the accumulation of all the emotions that come with motherhood: guilt, frustration, loneliness, doubt, and the constant pressure of rushing everywhere. This is exhausting! and it’s no wonder you feel drained at the end of the day.

Emotional overload can be harder to notice. Often, we just push feelings aside and keep going. (Because, seriously, which mum actually has time to sit with her emotions while running around all day??!)

My advice is to take a few seconds here and there to check in with yourself. Reconnect with your body: notice your breath, your heartbeat, the feel of your clothes on your skin. Then, ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now?” Whatever comes up, simply acknowledge it without judgment. This practice literally takes only 30 seconds, so you can squeeze it in anytime.

The deeper roots of maternal overwhelm

Now, let’s dive into what really lies behind mums’ overwhelm.

Because yes, there is overstimulation, yes there is the cognitive and emotional load, all the mental juggling… but all of this has deeper roots.

For instance, when you’re feeling on edge, like the slightest noise could set you off, it’s often because you’ve reached your physical limits. That general sense of irritation at everything can be a sign that you’re getting very close to burnout. And that’s likely because the weight you’re carrying is simply too heavy for one person to hold alone.

There may be resentment from being the sole carrier of the invisible load. Maybe there have been frustrated attempts to make your partner aware of this load, leaving you feeling unseen and misunderstood (Eva Rado tackles this topic in her latest blog post).

There may also be underlying guilt and constant self-criticism linked to not fitting the image of the “ideal mother.” The pressure to get it right, and the constant sense of failure that comes from trying to meet unrealistic standards.

Or there may be difficult emotions that come with raising a child. These emotions that bring you back to your own childhood and force you to dig into old wounds. There’s the deep desire to break the cycle, to give your child the best possible chances in life, and the disappointment that comes when you fall back into old patterns.

I’m just going to say this: society has placed an unrealistic load on mothers. And while we are making progress toward gender equality, we’re still not there (for more on the pervasive impact of gender norms, check out my previous blog on the distribution of household chores).

Fathers are often praised for doing something, while mothers are criticised for doing the very same thing. A dad doing something “half-right” is seen as helping; a mum not doing it perfectly is judged negatively (Forbes et al., 2021)

Why is it important to recognise this double standard? Because it helps us realise that we (as a society) hold mothers to expectations that simply don’t make sense. If it’s good enough for dad, why wouldn’t it be good enough for mum? When we start to see how unfairly mothers are judged, we can reassess our own self-evaluation and lower the bar from a unicorn-like “supermum” standard to a much more human, realistic version of what it means to be a “good mum”.

By no longer comparing yourself to the version of an ideal mother that cannot exist, you can begin to release some of the weight that fuels overwhelm. Part of this may involve lowering your standards, but it also means asking for support, setting boundaries, and placing your own needs on an equal footing with everyone else’s needs at home.

In a nutchell, if you’re overwhelmed, it’s because you’re carrying too much. It’s not because you’re doing it wrong. And no, other mums don’t have it all together either!!! They might look like they’re juggling everything perfectly but everyone has its own challenges, even when they’re not visible.

Let me leave you with this: when you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember that not everything has to happen right now. Take a deep breath. It’s okay to step back, you’ll figure it out later.

Looking for some extra tips?

For simple practical advice on how to organise your time with a busy schedule, check out my free time management training for mums

References

Tracy Sidesinger (2024). Maternal Excess: Pathways Through Overwhelm to Transformation in the Perinatal Period. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 25:2, 93-103, https://doi.org/10.1080/15240657.2024.2346455

Lisa K. Forbes, Margaret R. Lamar & Rachel S. Bornstein (2021). Working Mothers’ Experiences in an Intensive Mothering Culture: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study, Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 33:3, 270-294, https://doi.org/10.1080/08952833.2020.1798200